


My Favorite Mistake

by anonlytree



Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU in which Sunderland are loaded, But DON'T get your hopes up I have NO fucking clue how to write him, Daddy Kink, Jordan Henderson - Freeform, M/M, basura, gone horribly wrong, which is what I plan to be once I novelize this trololol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8083273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonlytree/pseuds/anonlytree
Summary: ^ An actual rl headline in an actual national daily.





	1. # concept

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Booperesque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Booperesque/gifts).



> It's 2012. Southampton are still in the Championship (spoiler alert: not for long...) Every now and then the FA sends its top refs to slum it down in the lower leagues, keeping it real. This is an actual thing that happens. The rest not so much.
> 
> I mean, this also happened and it was hilarious...  
>   
> ...but everything else is basically my brain being a gigantic garbage patch spiraling out of control. 
> 
> Please don't link this anywhere that might get me sued and/or viral.

Adam's thigh throbs.

He doesn't even register the pain when the studs go into his flesh, it's all drowned out by the sting of heat. Heat rising to his face, a heatwave barreling into his brain as he struggles to his feet and smashes into a wall of muscle. The Barnsley defender who'd clattered into him just moments earlier is still waving his arms around, still trying to convince the ref he got the ball, he swears on his Mum. He doesn't see Adam jump to his feet like he's got springs tied to his cleats, barging into him in a head on collision. Adam's not big enough to cause any actual damage. His much larger nemesis sways half an inch at most, and even that is from being taken aback more than anything. And yet, it's enough to give Adam leverage on his shoulders - it's all downhill from there.

Adam's face is very, very red and his chest keeps thumping into the opponent like a battering ram, until he feels an impossibly big hand clutching his arm.

"Get the fuck off, mate," he sputters, struggling to shake off what he assumes is another Barnsley player riding to the rescue.

He's wrong.

He realizes how wrong he is when he feels the hand moving up to the sweaty nape of his neck and hears the ref barking his name:

"Adam! _E-nough_!"

He crumples instantly, a sheet of paper licked by a flame. Adam doesn't look at the ref, doesn't move, he just stands there in the middle of the pitch with Mark Clattenburg still gripping the back of his neck hard enough to leave marks. His spine straightens eventually and he's off running with a limp as soon as the whistle goes off, but that's the least of Adam's problems.

Half time ended only eight minutes ago and he'll have to play the rest of the game with a hardon.

 

*

 

It's a bit unfair that his Man of The Match performance - a brace no less - should end with Adam sitting alone in a tiny room, trying to rehydrate himself enough to pee in a cup. Adrenaline is a legal high and Adam's made the best of it, this is a pointless ticking the box exercise so Adam hasn't even bothered to put some pants on after his shower, a towel wrapped around his hips is the best he can do. It'll give the lads more time to sort out the drinks for later, at least, he thinks and chugs down another half a bottle of sugary liquid. He's tired, far too tired for his young years.

He doesn't hear the door, can't focus on it until he drains the last drops of liquid in the plastic flask. When he looks up, Adam's worried that he's going to fail the doping test. He doesn't smoke and he's fairly sure he hasn't inhaled anything other than his sweaty teammates' joy and gratitude. It must mean the man standing beside his plastic chair in his crisp official suit is real. 

"How's your leg?" Mark asks, his voice scratched by an awkward stiffness that transfers to the line of his shoulders.

There are at least half a dozen answers Adam could use to make things slightly less weird. They range from casual oh, I hadn't noticed that you broke post-match protocol... it's fine... thanks for asking, to inane banter about motivation and can you ref us every day. Adam chooses none of the above. He's too focused on Clattenburg's still wet hair standing up in stark contrast to his flawless suit. Of course he's showered, refs shower too. They run and sweat and have messy hair. And dicks. Referees have penises. The novelty of the thought bursts into some part of Adam's brain that's unconnected to his limbs, which are propelling him up in Mark Clattenburg's personal space. 

The plastic chair scrapes across the floor. Adam hooks his thumb inside the knot of his towel. His eyes travel up to Mark's just as the towel slides down his legs. He's goading Clattenburg to look at the violent splotch of purple on his thigh, sensing rather than knowing that this could end either terribly bad or terribly well, but the promise of terror is there. All Adam knows is his dick's hard again, he just needs it to end somehow. 

Mark struggles for the briefest of moments to push air back inside his chest. Then he slides his hand down Adam's thigh and swirls his thumb across the livid bruise, just on the right side of painful. 

Ideally, Adam would have liked so much more. The only parts of Mark that are touching him are Mark's hands - one around his dick, the other covering Adam's entire lower face in an effort to muffle his panting - and Mark's dick rubbing against Adam's squirming ass through way too many layers of fabric. Even so, it gets the job done. Adam comes all over the wall of Barnsley's medical room with an FA ref pinning him down, grunting unintelligible filth in his ear. 

"Apology accepted," he croaks, sometime after his knees buckle and he slumps against Mark's chest. 

 

TBC


	2. Poached by The Poch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU where everything stays the same but Liverpool win the PL in 2009. ~~Hahaha ha h a h...*chokes*,~~

Adam starts fiddling with his phone halfway through the appetizers. The food is nice and greasy and his new teammates are doing everything they can to make the new lad feel welcome, even though he can barely understand half of what filters through the thick Geordie accents of the few locals left at the club. It's a bit strange because he knows he'd be resented for his price tag and the endless saga of his bitter transfer at any club south of Manchester.

New Money Sunderland's not used to having millions to throw away on attacking midfielders though, so it doesn't feel like they blew it all on Southampton's flighty Captain anyway. It still makes Adam wince, how it all ended at home; his mates defending him on social media, the burning shirts, the teary-eyed children holding up hand painted signs with existential questions for their young Captain. He's not that young anymore, his one season with his boyhood club in the Premier League is as hard as he can fight there, and once Pochettino confirms he's off chasing dreams up north, Adam follows him and signs his contract wearing his best junior accountant jumper and a big smile. At least the papers got the satisfaction of big POACHED BY THE POCH headlines and at least it's all over. 

His phone isn't exactly bursting with congratulations, save from texts from his best friend and grandma. Adam peeks discreetly at his iPhone again while his fellow new signings try to explain Spanish football to their new Captain.

"Phone still buzzin'?"

"Huh?"

"..."

"Ah. It's... nothing. I had a great time, Jordan," Adam says, his voice velvety and his eyes big and shiny. "I hope you don't mind if I head to the hotel early tonight. Still lots of things to sort through with the move and all that.

Jordan takes a few seconds to process it; Adam's high pitched voice, his genuine gratitude, his leg bouncing under the table. Eventually, he says something that Adam thinks sounds more or less like:

"Yarr, no prob, see you tomorrow??... At training?"

He's going to ask Mark for accent lessons. Just - not as the first item on the agenda. 

 

It takes him significantly less than 27 minutes to reach the quiet, leafy Newcastle street lined with Victorian houses and German convertibles, but speed limits are as far as Adam's willing to go with rule breaking. He parks three streets away and walks over through a back garden guarded by neat hedges, just as he'd been instructed. This is new, a change from sneaking into Mark's hotel rooms on away trips. The house is warmer, smells more of aged oak and Mark's cologne than his London bachelor pad. Adam does everything by the book in his first official night as a Sunderland player. Unlike the FA rulebook, this one starts with Adam fucked into the mattress by a Premier League referee. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. So - Sunderland got themselves bought by an oligarch and Liverpool don't shop at Southampton anyway (for reasons) in case you're wondering why this is a Sunderland AU of all places.   
> 2\. Sunderland also happens to be 14.3 miles away from Newcastle. Ideal bootycall location.   
> 3\. I WROTE 2!! T W O WHOLE LINES OF DIALOG FOR JORDAN HENDERSON and neither were "???". OTT but still PROUD! I'm sorry, there's just... **nothing** there I know what to do with.   
>  4\. PS: The Poch is newly rich Sunderland's new manager:  
> 


	3. Stacks on deck, Patrón on ice

London reporters start to learn to tell the Tyne from the Wear on the map by October. Perennial relegation scrap dog Sunderland are two goals short of sharing the top spot with City. The lads try to follow Pochettino's lead and nip any suggestion of a Cinderella title fight in the bud. Some are better at it than others, but they all get to hide behind Adam anyway. He's got two Player of the Month awards by the second international break and his midfield partnership with Sunderland's Captain is making Gary Lineker weep on air on a regular basis.

Their imperious performance in the trashing of Newcastle before the year's last international break gets them a Guardian spread that veers into poetry from the lede and goes downhill from there. 

_"Jordan Henderson is a quiet, unassuming lad whose young shoulders capacity to carry his childhood club was questioned only three short months ago. Pochettino stood firm throughout a preseason defined by hand wringing over Henderson's role in a new squad now packed with flashier, easier on the eye midfielders - none more so than Adam Lallana. There were even voices calling for a more pragmatic approach to the captaincy, quick to point out that it is not a birthright. Some argued that the responsibility should follow the money and be thrust upon Sunderland's most expensive signing ever, a player so silky smooth he's the closest thing to a Hermes scarf you're likely to see at the Stadium of Light._

_Lallana laughs, looking at Henderson as if to confirm he's got this throughball, his eyes sparkling with mischief and fondness._

_"He's made them all look pretty foolish, hasn't he?"_

_Henderson shrugs. He wouldn't have minded. It would be tempting to dismiss it as PR coyness from any other footballer, but Henderson seems harder to media train than most. His absolute trust in Lallana is evident on the pitch, where the Captain acts as both foil and enabler for his more adventurous midfield partner."_  

Mark folds the newspaper back into a tight roll chaffing against his palms and orders a Stella. He is in the FA's executive box at Wembley, doing a mediocre job of feigning ignorance about how much his hosts dislike him. His professional relationship with his employers has always felt like walking a tightrope. Mark acts like he's good at the politics and the backstage ground game, but he's not. He's sitting next to an FA oaf in a suit who's smirking into his beer and giving his expert opinion on England's traditional plodding first half of football. 

"That Lallana lad... flash in the pan. A purple patch up in Sunderland means nothing on the big stage. Wembley separates the men from the boys.

Mark almost gags on the first sip of his beer. He wishes he could tell them Adam hasn't been a boy in a long time, but he keeps his eyes on the pitch, wincing at every scuffed shot from England's number 9. It's odd to see another number on his back, but that's not an advisable train of thought right now, Mark knows it. He also tries not to think of the pain seared on his skin that afternoon he let Adam play like the brat he is. He fails. He unfurls the newspaper and pulls it across his lap, a preemptive measure. It's not needed after all. Henderson replaces Gerrard in the 56th minute and goes straight for his club teammate to catch up. 

 

 *

 

Mark has never slept well in his London flat. It's not home. He usually gets to his bachelor's pad past midnight, unless he's in London for a noon game, but he prefers to drive back to Newcastle for those. Or he used to. A lot of his life's well-worn patterns have changed in the last year. Now when he hears the click of the front door opening and closing, it doesn't matter what time it is, Mark knows Adam's going to be so eager, he will barely have time to undress him. Not like he's the one to talk tonight. With Adam's transfer and his own Champions League fixtures, they haven't done this in a while. It feels like they see each other less than when they used to live in two opposite corners of the country and met in London when their fixtures allowed. 

"Hola," Adam says, shrugging off his oversized winter coat and dropping his spare key on the kitchen counter. 

"Celebrated your first England cap, I see."

Mark can smell the champagne on him, wants to taste it. He wonders if he already tastes like other men, shakes his head to chase away the thought. 

"Yeah, but it was boring."

His hair's a ruffled mess and smells of hotel bars. Adam slinks over, but stops just short of touching Mark, waits for Mark to grab his face. His hands are so big they cover the back of Adam's head. 

"I wanna celebrate better," Adam says, ducking away from Mark's mouth to draw his attention down to what's under Adam's flannel. He undoes three buttons at an excruciating pace before Mark recognizes England's number 9 in the middle of what he thought was a white undershirt. 

"Is that..."

"Eww, no! It's a clean one. I showered, mate," Adam says, freeing his arms from the outer layer. Mark's disappointed but his dick decides it can live with a clean replica of Adam's first ever England kit and pulls him by the front of it until Adam's pressed against him all over. 

"You did well," Mark says, bending down to kiss him while his hands slide under the shirt and up to Adam's chest. Adam whines. 

"Mmm... well?" but he doesn't elaborate on his faux disappointment, he'd rather have Mark's tongue back in his mouth. He tastes of cocktails. 

"Better than well," Mark concedes, rubbing his thumb harder on Adam's nipple under the elastic Nike fabric. "You were England's only saving grace. And..."

"What," Adam laughs, his eyes glazed over with something that's neither mischief nor fondness, and fuck The Guardian and their hacks, because Mark knows that look and wouldn't change it for the world. 

"You get anything you want tonight."

"Anything?"

A little chill goes down Mark's spine when Adam grabs his left arm and turns it over to the pale, soft skin above his wrist. 

"Maybe I should add a 9 to this," Adam muses, his index finger running over the little stick figure chasing a football above a 2 and a sunshine that looks suspiciously like it was copied off an iPhone screen. 

"209? It'd look like a highway sign," Mark protests just enough to not have to admit that he doesn't want to lose the 20 Adam had scribbled on his forearm with a tattoo gun one night that feels like a million years ago.

Mark knew it was a shit idea even before it was too late, but he's pacified the FA by agreeing to wear long sleeves in all seasons. UEFA doesn't care, the Europeans have never had a stick up their arses about him, and after the first time Adam traced Mark's newly healed tattoo with his tongue, all of Mark's past misgivings about his small piece of body art evaporate. He'd hardly been blameless. He maybe shouldn't have run his palm over the massive angel slash gladiator figure inked on Adam's side, up and down until he inevitably asked if it hurt. Adam frowned and asked _What... when I fell from heaven?_ and then Mark wanted to spank his arse raw but found better uses for it. 

"I don't have my tools with me anyway," Adam says and then he drops his pants to his ankles and steps out of his shoes like he's drunk and exhausted and the usual will do just fine. 

Mark fucks him from behind while he's still wearing his England shirt, the 9 on Adam's back twisted into Mark's fist for leverage. 

 

 *

Adam pulls his groin on his return from international duty and doesn't answer any of Mark's texts for a week. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what you're thinking - like *eyeroll* Riiiiight, like anybody in their right mind would let Llama wield a tattoo gun anywhere near their skin. Well then, just stand there and BE WRONG!
> 
>  


	4. It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Click before reading.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAK9Pj5-QXY)

_December 2013_

 

Mark can’t open a newspaper or log in to facebook without catching a glimpse of Adam’s well-moisturized face. Sunderland are understandably obsessed with their new midfield wonder, but Mark wishes Newcastle had more self-respect and didn’t plaster billboards featuring Adam’s cosmetics ads all over town. Especially the ones where his co-star is the Captain of Sunderland. Mark chides himself for acting like an irrational schoolboy. He’s the one who made Adam promise to put an end to their secret meetings after home games.  

They fuck in midweek instead. 

Adam’s exploits on the pitch are all over TV on Saturdays. Now that he’s become Sunderland’s golden boy, even ninety-year-old Mrs. Cooper with the hearing aid, his neighbor from across the street who always chides Mark for still not finding a nice girl to marry, might recognize him. Not that Mark has any trouble being persuasive with Adam. He can be wonderfully pliant if you know which buttons to push.  

Mark hasn’t pushed any buttons, or much of anything else, since Adam’s groin injury. Adam sounds pleased with his recovery process, tells him he still has hopes of making it to the Christmas fixtures, but Mark knows he’s not yet training with the team. From the Sunderland Updates Instagram account. Which he’s followed for purely professional reasons. And checks every morning with ritualistic fervor before he even brews his coffee. That’s how Mark gets the idea. It’s a good idea. Hell, it’s a great idea when he browses the Miami resort’s website.

Mark saves a picture of the penthouse suite hot tub and uploads it to a text, but his thumb hovers over the send icon. He licks his lips and is about to send Adam the invitation but then. He gets an even better idea and books Miami tickets for two and deletes the hot tub from his drafts folder.

He goes shopping for swimming trunks and tinsel.

 

 

_December 2012_

 

Mark walks out of the shower only to find his London bed empty. He wraps his bathrobe tighter and heads for the kitchen following the jingle of Christmas songs. He’s rooted to the spot by the sight of a half-naked Adam Lallana struggling to string Christmas lights above the kitchen window.  

There’s Mariah Carey on the radio, a half-eaten peach tart waiting for him in a casserole by the sink and Adam’s on his tiptoes, barefoot and wearing clothes on the wrong half as far as Mark is concerned. He reacts late, but eventually Mark pulls the lights up above the curtains with one hand while his other sneaks into the front of Adam’s boxers.

“Do you always keep your Christmas lights in a box next to the cleaning supplies for the holidays? Is that like a cool London thing?” Adam squirms as Mark wraps himself around his naked torso, sucking at his neck. 

"What are you, Santa's mouthy elf?"

"Keep it up and you're not getting any peach tart, mate," Adam warns, twisting his hips to turn into Mark's embrace. He drags a piece of tinsel out from the box, loops it around Mark's neck and Mark lets him, Mark always lets him. Adam's hair looks extra messy in the soft glow of the Christmas lights. 

"You bake." It's not a question because it somehow makes perfect sense to Mark. "You... baked for me?" he adds, cautiously, doing his best not to look down at Adam, eying the peaches glistening under gelatin instead. 

"Oh. This was just... I found the casserole in my gym bag after the game, it'd be a shame for it to go to waste," says Adam, casual as anything and then he pushes himself up on the counter, his naked legs dangling over the cabinets. He spoons a hefty chunk of pie and lifts it to Mark's face. "It was my final project in cooking school. Dessert's kind of my specialty."

It's hard to argue with that, Mark thinks, having just moaned and only reluctantly let Adam pull the spoon out of his mouth. 

"You've got your post-retirement career sorted, if you ask me," he says. "That is the best fucking pie I've ever... _Christ_!"

Adam's eyes shine. 

"If only Jay Rod could hear this," he chuckles, somewhat alarmingly for Mark, who doesn't think he could handle another young man with Adam's... appetite. "He signed me up to cooking school as a joke gift for my birthday. A bit of banter 'cause I kept moaning about the new nutritionist Poch brought along."

"You? Moaning? I find that hard to believe," Mark says, leaning into another spoonful of peach Adam serves him.

"I'll pack one of his lunches for you next time," Adam says, opening his legs wider until he can lock them around Mark's waist, trapping him in a koala vise grip. "See how you like all the quinoa and kale cattle feed he makes us eat. Joke's on Jay Rod, by the way. He comes slobbering to me after every game to ask what I baked. They're all like hungry birds waiting to see what I packed in the casserole this time."

"So devious," Mark laughs, sticking his index finger in the leftover pie and pointing it at Adam's collarbone. "Everyone thinks Southampton's Captain is such a sweetheart. Oh, but they have no idea," he drawls, smearing a trail of peach-flavored cream on Adam's chest right before he starts to lick it off. 

Adam swings his forearm around Mark's neck when Mark lifts his ass off the counter to carry him back to the bedroom. He's making a fuss about Mark's stubble scratching his nipples and grabs the tinsel still hanging on Mark's shoulders. Adam's got big plans with that piece of tinsel. 

 

 

_December 2013_

 

Mark replays the video. Again. And again. 

"Look, it's not that I don't appreciate it. I do," Adam says, his voice extra whiny over the phone. "You know how much I love Miami. And that hot tub looks _ah_ -mazing. I just... I should be taking it easy to make sure my groin's fully recovered this time and the lads... They're away next weekend, I just feel like I should be there supporting them any way I can."

There was some more perfectly reasonable conversation, Mark thinks he might have even apologized for springing the Miami tickets on him as a Christmas surprise. None of that matters. He's been replaying the same Christmas video on Sunderland TV for three whiskey glasses now. Adam in a Christmas jumper. A stupid, red Christmas jumper with a badly-drawn reindeer. Adam with his new haircut that's ruined half of his soft, beautiful hair. Adam with the soft skin and the shiny eyes crinkling with laughter. Laughing at Jordan Henderson. Who is also wearing a stupid Christmas jumper. 

Mark contemplates throwing his phone in the trash bin, anything to make it stop. He throws in the brand new tinsel instead and tries to dial Adam's number again. 

 

 

The FA puts Mark in charge of Sunderland's top of the table clash with City on Boxing Day. His phone is buzzing with congratulatory texts, it takes a while for the blow to land, buried under all the well wishes:

 

_[A20]:_ _Please stop calling this number._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The slutty leprechaun does bake irl. Jay Rodriguez could not be reached for comment though.


	5. Paean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a Valentine's Day chapter but MY OTP HAS BEEN TRAGICALLY SEPARATED, it's practically goddamn Gerlonso now! (I was looking for an appropriate Siken poem for this chapter, but Sheeran will have to do...) Whyyyyy Mark??? Who will watch with a smirk now as Llama gets the shit kicked out of him around the penalty box?

Adam picks himself off the pitch feeling every muscle in his body about to snap. They're first, they're somehow still first and it's all that matters, it has to be. They're technically hanging onto first on goal difference now, but nobody will remember that any more than they'll remember the studs going into Adam's thigh with impunity or his penalty appeals met with a reptilian smile and a dismissive wave of Mark's hand. Adam is all bluster and arms raised to the heavens. He scrunches up his nose, points to his eyes like a deranged ophthalmologist—all in vain.

It's not Mark's blatant anti-Sunderland refereeing that he finds shocking (if Adam were a more self-aware human, he'd admit his ego's getting a hard stroke as the fate of the Premier League rests on his dick-sucking skills; except Adam is Not Gay, Mate! and sucking or no longer sucking a guy's dick is not something he'd ever reflect on anyway). What freaks him out is Mark's uncharacteristic silence. It's not like Mark Clattenburg, Man Who Makes Things Happen on the Telly to not throw in a cheeky comment along with his yellow cards; it's never been Mark, not even long before he first bent Sunderland's star midfielder over his kitchen counter. And yet here he is, denying Sunderland a match-winning, 94th-minute penalty despite Adam's ankle crunching horrifically before the CB's studs go anywhere near the ball. 

And then Jordan Henderson turns around and says:

"FUCK OFF! _PEN_! FUCK OFF!"

...and goes straight in the book for protests, with Mark's eyes shooting self-satisfied daggers over Jordan's shoulder where Adam is standing bedraggled by freezing raindrops and numbed by pain in his foot.

The stadium is a cauldron fuming under the rain as Pochettino has to be physically restrained by half of Sunderland's bench and the final whistle unleashes yet more malicious chanting from the away fans.

Adam limps off towards the tunnel, too spent to notice when Mark jogs past him. Adam can smell his sweat and his hatred before he hears Mark hissing in his ear as he passes him by:

"Your boyfriend has quite the big mouth on him. You must get lost in there."

 

 

_[A20] Can we talk?_

_[A20] I really thought we could handle this like grownups._

_[A20] I'll go first. But I get it if u don't wanna..._

 

_[A20] I miss... u know. Anyway call me if you want 2talk._

 

 

"He's not my boyfriend," Adam moans as he now finds himself in a position in which Not Gay, Mate! is fairly debatable. His ankle is killing him as he's bent like a pretzel straddling Mark's lap in the front seat of an SUV, but it's not stopping him from grinding himself even harder against Mark's crotch.

Mark ignores him, incapable of ever admitting to entertaining the notion of a rival. His fingers curl tighter against the damp half of Adam's hair that's not shaved.

"You miss what... When you texted earlier...," he growls against Adam's neck letting the interrogation dangle somewhere next to his dignity and Adam escapes Mark's grip and stills for a brief moment. His eyes are soft. 

"I, uh—" Adam starts then lunges at Mark's mouth and nearly rips his bottom lip off, though he's the one who ends up yelping in pain when his knee slips and knocks against the car door. "Fuck! Since when do you drive a shitty Vauxhall?"

"It's not mine. It's an FA car," Mark chuckles, giving Adam's butt a helpful shove up to help him get unstuck. 

"Oh," is all Adam says and Mark can see the gears turning inside Adam's head in that second it takes him before he decides to slide off Mark's lap and crouch in the crawl space under the steering wheel. His fingers are working Mark's fly open before he's even settled on his tired knees and Mark has to remind himself how to breathe through his nose. 

Adam comes up briefly to lick his lips and hit the play button on the Vauxhall's stereo and suddenly their cramped surroundings are vibrating with pop guitars.  

"Sheeran? Niiiice," Adam says before he goes back to work with the enthusiasm and dedication that's turned him into England's next great hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Ed Sheeran, i c u and your shady lyrics like what a coincidence that this song should come out just as this is turning into a tragic OTP mhmmmm.
> 
> \- "And then Jordan Henderson turned around and said... uh..." Thank you, Xabier, for making me feel less alone in my STRUGGLE with Hendo dialogue. 
> 
> \- Everything about the Real Life 2014 Ed Sheeran incident is a joy to read.   
> "In 2009, the then-Manchester City manager Mark Hughes alleged that Clattenburg had based a decision to send off Craig Bellamy on a personal dislike for the striker, with a source claiming the referee had asked City staff as he walked by them: “How do you work with Craig Bellamy all week?” 
> 
> Fuck, I'm going to miss him so much!


End file.
